Stanford camera chip can see in 3D
Most folks think of a photo as a two-dimensional representation of a scene. Stanford University researchers, however, have created an image sensor that also can judge the distance of subjects within a snapshot.
To accomplish the feat, Keith Fife and his colleagues have developed technology called a multi-aperture image sensor that sees things differently than the light detectors used in ordinary digital cameras.
 Each subarray on the multi-aperture sensor captures a small portion of the overall image, a portion that overlaps slightly with that of the neighboring subarrays. By comparing the differences, a camera can judge the distance of elements in the subject. (Note that this mock-up differs from reality, in which each subimage would be rotated 180 degrees, but this makes the idea easier to grasp.)
(Credit: Keith Fife/Stanford University)
After a photo is taken, image-processing software then analyzes the slight location differences for the same element appearing in different patches--for example, where a spot on a subject's shirt is relative to the wallpaper behind it. These differences from one subarray to the next can be used to deduce the distance of the shirt and the wall.
"In addition to the two-dimensional image, we can simultaneously capture depth info from the scene," Fife said when describing the technology in a talk at the International Solid State Circuits Conference earlier this month in San Francisco.
The result is a photo accompanied by a "depth map" that not only describes each pixel's red, blue, and green light components but also how far away the pixel is. Right now, the Stanford researchers have no specific file format for the data, but the depth information can be attached to a JPEG as accompanying metadata, Fife said.
Recording photos in three dimensions is a pretty radical overhaul of the concept. Depending on your preferences, it could be anything from an exciting new frontier to the latest annoying digital gimmick.
Either way, you'd best start thinking about the implications because Fife isn't the only one working on the challenge. Image-editing powerhouse Adobe Systems has shown off some 3D camera technology too. It should be noted, of course, that stereoscopy itself is an old and respected photographic subject.
Even if you don't want to print holographic pictures of your new kitten, I suspect that 3D technology could help with some traditional photography challenges. Just as face detection can make a camera decide better where to focus and how to expose a shot, having a depth map could make this sort of calculation that much more sophisticated.
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